Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-02-16

They IN far enough away, too, those
pleasant saunterings after Office hours Now
I have to hurry off by the tramway to the
horrid quarters where my wife chooses to
live, to be near her parents. There I live in
q dreary entresot, with o low ceiling, and
when / shave in the morning before the win
| dow I look out on the houses that are being
| pulled down, and further off in tho distance I
| get q side view of a six-storicd house with q
| great green devil painted OF it, shaking out
OF q cornucopia the waistcoat, coat and
trousers of 81 suit.
1t is not that l have any complaint to make
of my wife; she is a good. worthy creature,
except that she loves her children, not like O
mother, but like a hen, and spoils them hor-
ribly. Only l shall never get used to her lad
management Il ask you, is it bearable for a
nervous man to be continually finding, as I
do every day, children's damp shoes hanging
IN the fire-irons and pinafores drying on the
guard, and 1 shall never be able to UNI
derstand either why she will persist in keep
ing that servant with the port wine mark on
her face, who takes away my appetite every
time l look at her.
could even bear with my mother-in-law, a
poor little slave, terrified to death by the
broad, black eyebrows and white beard Of her
old Neptune of a husband, whom she never
addressed but in a manner calculated to COM
bine respect will, tenderness, rs:
"Monsieur Dubu, will you pass me the mus
tard!" "Monsier Dubu, will you have a little
more soup!"
ut is he, Dubu, he, my father-in law, who
has poisoned my existence. He is domestic
tyrant, an odious bourgeoisie. Commonplace
and pretentious, he takes advantage of his
austere and venerable appearance tc give the
weight of a sermon to his slightest words, and
to inflict all his idiotic theories, that he gets
second hand out of the papers, on me. That
p~atriarchal head of his, which looks more
like a bust cut out of soap, ~irritates me to
such an extent with its expression of unbear-
abb stupidity that when he talks of the en-
croachments Of the clergy I long to enroll
myself among the pilgrims to Lourdes, and
when he boasts of the honorable ~conquests
gained by the b~ourgeoisie, whom he always
calls the aristocracy Of labor, I feel inclined
to array myself in a red sash and put myself
at the head of a band of communards. Hard
and close in all matters of business, he con-
siders charity degrading to the poor, and
would not give a penny to a beggar on
the excuse that mendicants make them
selves up with artificial infirmities, and
that he himself was accosted ON evening by
a ragged wretch who was carrying a sham
baby she had made out of a bundle of rags.
When 1 began housekeeping I was impru-
dent enough to trust my furnishing to this
terrible man, who declared be could get
everything much cheaper and better than I
could do, and now 1 live in all the abomina-
ton of red velvet and mahogany, and my
drawing room clock-O, my pretty cuckoo
from the Black Forest, how gayly you used
to chime out the hours Of my liberty in my
room in the Rue d'Assas. My drawing room
clock is a hideous block of marble of the color
of an Italian cheese. My beautiful prints
from Baudouin and Fragonard have long
since been exiled, as indecent, into the OBJ
scurity of a dark passage, and funeral pic
lures, after Delaroche, gifts of my father-in-
law-Jane Grey before the block, with a
weeping executioner, and Lord STAFFORD put
ting his hand through the bars of his prison.
in gaudy frames, sadden the walls of my
apartment.
Last year, on my wife's birthday, I was
driven to break out into open revolt against
M. Dubu, who threatened to adorn my DWELL
ing with q most terrific scene from the In
QUESTION, with tribunal of monks. execution
ers in cowls, and a naked victim writhing on
burning Goals. My nights are not very good,
as it is; if I nave eaten anything a little I'M
manageable at dinner Jane Grey and Lord
STAFFORD pursue me in nightmare, and
l dream that l am obliged to cut of my
x,,sfoSe 1aoA ~ fhof oro Enoo1ipr hof0ro a
to kiss the hand my father-in-law
holds out to me between the bars.
He took a cruel revenge. though. for my
refusal. He has hung up in his daughters
room-in our nuptial chamberlain enlarged
copy Of his own photograph of himself,
Dubu, invested with his Freemason's insig- |
MIA.
Such is my life! And all because I lost my
head for a moment when A~delaide-my wife's |
bread from the tablecloth; and, as If to !
day evening, when we rave dined with my |
fatber-in-law, when the dessert is put on the
table, and when / am dreaming, vaguely
fascinated by my f~ather-in-law's long white
beard, of all the disagreeables Of our journey
home through the rainy night, Of the heavy |
children l shall have to carry, Of the in
terminable waiting in the omnibus stations,
wife gets up to sweep away the crumbs
as she did formerly, and, thinking to awaken
tender remembrance, shows me the brush, !
with a smile, but that curved instrument
only sets me sadly thinking Of the last cres-
:ent of our honeymoon that set 80 long ago.
Francois Coppee.